Friday, July 31, 2015

Last Week's Top STEM Exploration Picks! July 27, 2015

Bookshelf of the Week:

Last Week's Top Picks:

New Earth-like Planet Discovered! The Kepler space telescope, designed to discover new planets outside the solar system continues to produce some great results. Last week a new batch of planet discoveries were announced... including the most "Earth Like" planet announced to date. The planet, called Kepler-452b orbits its star in the Habitable Zone -- the region where conditions could support life as we know it. The discovery of Kepler-452b was announced in a list of over 500 new planetary candidates, 12 of which could be orbiting in the habitable zone of their parent star. Kepler-452b was the first of these 12 to be confirmed as a planet, and the first discovery of a small habitable zone planet orbiting a star that is in the same class as the Sun.

Construction began on the world's largest radio telescope in China's Guizhou province. The telescope called the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, or FAST, will take the record as the largest single-aperture radio telescope from Arecibo, which opened in 1963. The project is expected to be completed in 2016, and will allow us to explore the radio universe 3 times deeper, and 10 times faster than are possible with the Arecibo telescope.

Progress towards slowing Alzheimer's was announced. Research suggests that a new drug called Solanezumab might slow the decline in Alzheimer's patients if given early. The new results were announced at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Washington, DC, on 22 July, Although this treatment does not provide a cure for the disease, it may be able to produce a significant slowing in the progress of the disease if it is given early on.

Space Exploration Anniversaries were celebrated this week including the 46th anniversary of the first humans setting foot on the Moon, and the 16th anniversary of the launch of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.